


Saturday Shopping

by MJ (mjr91)



Series: So A Lawyer and A Wizard Walk Into A Bar [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Crack, Crack Crossover, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Nothing But the Snark, Pre-Slash, Snark, So much crack you'd think it's on drugs, The Whole Snark, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 07:31:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10635189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjr91/pseuds/MJ
Summary: Severus Snape looks for potion ingredients in New York.  Rafael Barba is walking down the street.  Snark ensues.  Drinking ensues.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, if the snarkiest man in Harry Potterdom, whom we know drinks, met the snarkiest man in the Law and Order universe, whom we know drinks, you'd get snark to the second power. Plus drinking.
> 
> THIS IS ACTUALLY PART ONE BUT I'M TOO LAZY TO FIX IT.

Severus Snape went where he wanted, which wasn’t often, for staying at home was far preferable to mingling with any other being.  He went where he needed, as well, which was far more often, because, things to do, ingredients to buy, as Madame Pomfrey liked to put it.  (He loathed how she put it, but then, Severus Snape thought that almost anything said by any mortal was relatively foul.  If only he could “silencio” everyone on earth, life would be splendid, or at least marginally better.)  If that meant going to Diagon Alley, fine.  If it meant going to the heart of muggle London or Edinburgh, he’d pull his greasy hair back into a pony tail, pull on black jeans and black leather boots along with a black shirt, and look tall and greasy but relatively inconspicuous.

Sometimes he’d even floo to Paris, to Moscow, or to Mexico.  You went where you needed to go to get the ingredients for a potion.  It was why Severus Snape was the potions master of potions masters; he had no fear of doing what was needed to get what was needed.  If he needed something far iffier than he could purchase or barter for with witches or muggles, if danger was involved, well, that was why there was Bill Weasley.

Today he was going to floo to New York.  A muggle botanica in some place called The Bronx, whatever that was, had some South American ingredients he wanted for a special potion he was developing.  An instant antidote for the Weasley twins’ Whomping Whoppers, giant cinnamon red-hots that caused the eater to inflate to the size of a giant parade balloon and turn embarrassing pastel colors for three days, was just what every witch or wizard who knew a child over the age of five needed.  He placed a muggle wallet into his pocket after checking that he had sufficient galleons to exchange for the needed dollars at the New York branch of Gringotts. He’d floo there, and if he had time, he’d floo back from there; if it was late, he’d floo back from The Ugly Muggle, an Irish wizarding pub in Manhattan that brewed its own Galway Butterbeer.

*   *   *

Rafael Barba had to visit his mother.  He said “had,” because only absolute necessity would force him to go visit the woman.  What had made her twist his arm into agreeing to get Judge Barth to speak at a professional women’s forum in University Heights, he didn’t know, but she insisted on his coming to her apartment to discuss the event.  Apparently he would be completely unable, being both male and still a child in her maternal estimation, to comprehend the details of the event if she did not recite them to his face.  And, of course, he had to understand every unnecessary detail in order to talk to Judge Barth.  Although he didn’t think Judge Barth would care if the coffee at the luncheon was organic, Lucia Barba believed that her knowing that the beverages were all organic and fair trade was crucial.

After being forced into going out for lunch with her at Ming Wong (sure, the chicken at Liberato was great, but Barba had spent his entire childhood eating Latino food and he now preferred virtually anything else, but there wasn’t a decent bistro – in his opinion – anywhere in the neighborhood, and he didn’t really care for Ghanian food that much), he decided that it was a lovely day out and that he might as well walk around the neighborhood before catching the subway back to Columbus Circle.

His walk down West Burnside took him right past a couple of neighborhood botanicas.  It amazed Barba that people really believed in some of the syncretic Latin and Central American faiths, any more than they believed in the Church, but if you thought that lighting a green candle for Santa Muerte meant that you’d get off a pickpocketing charge when you went to court, it certainly wasn’t any more foolish than believing that burying a statue of Saint Joseph in your yard would make your house sell faster.  He was making that comparison in his head when he bumped into a taller man – most men were taller, really, but no one was more cocksure than he – exiting Botanica Las 21 Divisiones.

*   *   *

“Cretin.”

“Madre de dios, look where you’re going.”  A New York accent, an indisputable one, with a perfect accent to his Spanish at the same time – was the speaker Latino or not?  He was certainly impeccably dressed; did he belong here?  (Snape stared at the speaker.  He was slightly startled.)

“I might say the same of you, you insufferable lout.”  An English accent, exiting a botanica?  That was ridiculous.  (Barba glared at the limey bastard.  What the fuck was he doing, calling Rafael Barba a lout?)

“Aren’t you in the wrong neighborhood?  The tea shops and crumpets are in Manhattan, stupid.”

“So, if I am not mistaken, are the better tailors for juvenile sizes.  Might you not be in the wrong neighborhood as well?”

“I had the misfortune to grow up here, you imbecile.  What are you, a lost tourist?”

“I, at least, had business in this establishment.”  Snape brandished the bulky bag on his arm.

“In this country, shoppers have to share the sidewalks with everyone else.  I thought they did in England, too.”

“In England, pedestrians are expected to watch for what other pedestrians are doing.  I thought the same applied in New York.  My mistake, obviously.”

“No, your obvious blindness.  Have you thought about glasses?”

Snape stared again.  His harasser was short, yes, but very well dressed, even in casual wear; he looked, and sounded, reasonably intelligent.  He really wasn’t unattractive in the least.  And wonder of wonders, the man just kept it coming back at Snape without pause, completely unafraid to hurl retorts.  It was delightful.

Barba blinked.  Certainly, the man’s hair needed work, and he was ridiculously pale – of course, the English tended towards pasty – but someone who could keep up with insults of more than two words, none of which were a variant of “fuck”?  There was a brain there.  And probably conversation that didn’t involve invective.

Neither one could remember, later, who said “I’m sorry, I’m sure it was my fault – can I buy you a drink?”

 *   *   *

“Wizards, huh?”  Barba sat at The Ugly Muggle across from Snape at a small table.  “I didn’t know that was a career choice.”

“It’s not, really,” Snape explained.  “You’ve never had butterbeer?  Order a regular one.  They brew a splendid Galway Butterbeer here, but it’s a bit off-putting if you haven’t had one before.  No – being a wizard is what you muggles – non-wizards – might call genetic.  Like being born Caucasian, or Asian, or what have you, only you could be any race and have a wizarding gene.  It usually runs in families.  I must say, since the door into here didn’t give you a hard time, you might be descended from a squib.”

“A squib?” Barba was intrigued.

“A person with wizarding genes that don’t manifest in actual ability.  I suspect you might have a recessive wizarding gene from a few generations back.  It would explain why nothing here is looking at you oddly.”

“Interesting.  I might have to talk with you about that sometime, if you’d let me.  How long are you in town?”

“Oh.”  Snape looked over at the pub’s clock.  “I only flooed in for the day, to go shopping.  I hadn’t made plans to stay.”

“If you care to change your mind, my place is on West 57th Street.  Do wizards take cabs?”

“Wizards,” Snape pronounced, “do whatever they want.  Let’s have that butterbeer first.  I’m rather anxious for you to try it.”  He looked over at Barba.  “Do American muggles drink Scotch?”

“This one has a bottle of Glenmorangie sitting on a counter at his apartment.  Nightcap after we leave?”

“Only if I’m still invited to stay at your flat.  I wouldn’t want to drink and floo, you understand…”


End file.
